


Knock Three Times

by bar2d2s



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, Yet another AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3585180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The apartment building we live in is damn near empty, but you still managed to rent the apartment next to mine and play your music too loud at weird hours” AU .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock Three Times

**Author's Note:**

> I was putting off working on something else. You can kind of tell.

He’d been living in the same little top-floor corner apartment for going on three years when she moved in.

The building was mostly empty; ten apartments per floor, three floors, sixteen tenants, with eight of those sixteen bodies being families of four. The new girl had her pick of any of the twenty vacant apartments, yet somehow chose the spot right next to his.

And she was  _loud_.

Banging together furniture, vacuuming at odd hours, and god, her music. Not that he didn’t like it, they actually had very similar taste, though he’d have toned down on the Taylor Swift a bit, but she played it at an ear-shattering volume. Maybe she was nearly deaf and _needed_  it that loud.

Or maybe, she just didn’t know he was there.

Come to think of it, Sunny wasn’t sure most of his neighbors knew he was there. They weren’t exactly the tightest-knit group. Not to mention that he worked nights a lot, and lived in the most out of the way apartment that he mostly accessed via the stairs or fire escape, so the sound of the loud elevator gears wouldn’t bother anyone at 2:30 in the morning when he got home.

Well,  _this_  neighbor was going to know he existed.

Midway through the chorus of Style, Sunny marched over to the wall connecting his bedroom and what he assumed was her living room, picked up a phone book, and hurled it spine-first.

From the other side came a scream and a metallic crash.

His annoyance immediately melted into worry, and embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to scare her, just let her know that her music was bothering someone. He tore off to the door, running into the hall and knocking on hers. A few seconds passed, and he heard the chain lock click into place. The door opened.

“H-hello?”

And he was met with the clearest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

The embarrassment curdled into shame.

“Yeah, I…sorry about that. I guess they didn’t tell you I was up here?” She shook her head, and he laughed, pushing his hand up his forehead. “Oh my god, I’m a jerk. I’m sorry, I threw a phone book at our wall.” The door closed, and his heart sank. Well, there went any possibility of her ever talking to him again.

Then chain slid back, and the door swung open wider. Sunny’s jaw nearly dropped. 

His new neighbor was  _stunning_ , in that skinny girl next door kind of way, curly blonde hair forming a frizz halo around her entire head. Her tank top was an eye-searing shade of neon blue, and fell past her upper thighs, obscuring part of the design of her leggings, which featured classic Universal movie monsters. She jerked her thumb back into her home.

“I dropped a huge box of gears when that book hit the wall, and now a bunch of them are mashed together. Come help me sort through them.”

As it turned out, his neighbor liked more than just pop music.

Dawn’s primary income came from working in her family’s florist shop, but she also went to college for jewelry design, and was making a killing catering to the online steampunk crowd. Her older sister’s boyfriend owned a junk shop, and was always finding busted up bicycles for her to strip cogs and gears off of, so her overhead was pretty low. Once she got tired of smelling like metal polish all the time, she was going to try her hand at wire and glass jewelry, like the boardwalk hippies liked.

Sunny wasn’t used to being in awe of people, but Dawn was definitely worthy of it.

“Well? What are you doing in this part of the world?”

Him? Compared to her, nothing. He was in school studying musical theory three days a week, working two jobs the other four. 

“And the funny part is, I’m a part-time mechanic, and I don’t even _own_  a car.” Dawn giggled, smearing a little grease on her cheek as she covered her mouth. “But I mean, at least I’m qualified for my other job. I  _love_ to eat.” Her giggles erupted into full-blown belly laughter, and she curled in on herself.

It was such a little thing, making someone laugh, but this was the most human interaction he’d had with someone his own age in  _months_. It felt like his insides were filled with light.

After the gears were sorted back into their grease-streaked boxes, Sunny figured it was time to see himself out.

“Hey, next time you want to get my attention, how about you  _knock_  on the wall?” Dawn teased, leaning against her door. She was so tall, compared to him, with twenty miles of legs and not even the courtesy of wearing some kind of heel that gave them the illusion of being that long. He tried not to stutter when he replied.

“Same goes for you! You ever need me-” No, wrong. “Want me-” Try again. “Need anything, I’m just a couple taps away.” Nailed it. Her eyes practically  _shined_.

“I’m holding you to that, crafting gets boring as sin sometimes.”

* * *

Dawn invited him over more often than he thought she would.

Sometimes it was to keep her company while she was making things, sometimes it was just to watch TV. He got her hooked on How It’s Made, and she introduced him to the wonders of Steven Universe. On the few nights he wasn’t at the diner or in class, they’d eat dinner together.

But then there were the times she’d just invite herself into his apartment. The first time Sunny had woken up to Dawn making coffee in his kitchen, he’d assumed he was still dreaming.

“Funny, you’ve usually got your monster leggings on in this dream.” He had said with a yawn as he leaned on the counter, and her giggle had nearly given him a heart attack.

“They’re no good for climbing over the fire escape in, Sunny honey.” She’d replied, kissing the top of his head. “Sorry to sneak in, my machine broke.”

“So you  _climbed over the fire escape rails_?” He asked incredulously. “Dawn, we’re on the third floor! You could have killed yourself!” She snorted, pouring them both cups and retrieving the milk from his fridge.

“ _You_  do it all the time.”

“I was on the gymnastics team in high school, and did parkour after school with my friends for  _six years_.” He pointed out, conveniently leaving out the part where he still, technically, did freerunning all the time, but only when he  _really_  needed to let off some frustrated steam. “Dawn, please. I’ll give you my spare key, just  _don’t_  do that again.” Her eyes lit up and though he didn’t know why, he felt like he’d done something right.

* * *

Their relationship evolved slowly. Dawn started turning up at the diner during his shifts with her homework, claiming that it was too quiet at home. Sunny volunteered his time when they were understaffed at the flower shop on Easter, which earned him an invitation to dinner that night with her family.

“Dawn’s never actually brought anyone home before.” Her sister’s boyfriend, Bog, had remarked. He seemed glad to have another body to talk to. “How long have you two-”

“I’m her neighbor.” He’d interrupted. Bog merely raised an eyebrow.

“If you say so.” He said, going back to his potatoes. His plate was strangely bare, and Sunny wondered to himself if the man was a vegetarian.

“Bog? Oh,  _jeez_  no. He just doesn’t eat ham.” Dawn laughed on their drive back home. “He and Marianne did Passover with his mom last night, so we got him for Easter.”

They spent their precious free time that summer taking buses down to the beach, getting tans and sunburns and stomachaches from eating ice cream without actual food to precede it. Sunny was invited to Thanksgiving, and when he couldn’t find an affordable flight home, to Christmas as well. It was a little strange to be sleeping on an unfamiliar couch, but not unpleasant. Especially when Dawn snuck downstairs to shake her presents in just a long shirt.

“What are you, ten?” He asked, and she stuck out her tongue.

“Yes, on a scale of one to.”

She had him there.

* * *

One night, Dawn asked if he wanted to be her plus-one to her sister’s wedding.

“Hey, I got invited too.” He teased, and she whipped a cog at him, laughing.

“Yeah, but I wanna take you.” His heart jumped, but he didn’t let it show.

“What, as your date?” Sunny asked casually, twirling the cog around on his finger. When he looked up, Dawn’s cheeks had gone pink.

“So what if I do?”

Part of him wanted to jump for joy, but another part, a meaner part, wanted to tease her a little. “I dunno, I kind of had a plus-one in mind, myself. She’s really pretty, and I’ve had my eye on her for a long time.”

It was a mistake.

Dawn promptly deflated, turning back to her glue gun. “Oh, yeah. Totally. I understand.” Just like he had the first night they met, Sunny felt like an absolute ass.

“D-Dawn I was,” He sighed. “I meant you. I’d love to be your date.”

In response, Dawn threw another cog at him.

“Oh my  _god_  you’re such a jerk!” She yelled, but she was smiling. “Your punishment is that now you’ve got to tell me how pretty I am.”

“You’re like some kind of spring goddess.” He said seriously, and she laughed. “No, really. If I had a chariot drawn by skeletal horses, I’d totally invite you for a ride. Beats a scooter any day, right?” Dawn snorted.

“Keep going, Hades.” Sunny smiled to himself, but did as she asked.

“The first time I saw you, my jaw nearly dropped. I dream about you all the time. You don’t actually have to get me a birthday gift this year, so long as I can put sun screen on you again when we go back to the beach.” Dawn dropped her glue gun to the table, walking over to join him on the couch. Sort of. If ‘in his lap’ counted.

“Okay, I feel sufficiently complimented now, you can stop.” He grinned.

“Must I? Because I could-” 

Dawn never got to find out what he could, her lips brushing against his shut him up too well. When they finally pulled away from each other, Sunny laughed. “What?”

“The key. You’ve been planning this since I gave you my spare key, haven’t you?” Her face lit up, and he knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “I always thought I’d be smarter as an adult, but this is just pathetic. You mean we could have been doing this the whole time?!”

“Oh, shut up.” Dawn grumbled, snuggling further into his space, miles of legs hanging off the arm of the couch. “I’ll have you know I started liking you  _way_  before that.”

“Hm?” He knew he should be paying better attention, but between the feel of her body heat and the way she was running her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, he was starting to fall asleep.

“When I was moving in, I saw you doing your parkour thing down the fire escape. It was really impressive, and I thought you were cute, so when I learned we were neighbors, I played my music really loud, hoping you’d come tell me to keep it down.” Her face was a flaming red now, and it was adorable. “But my crushes have  _never_  gone well, so when we started hanging out and neither of us made a move, I just figured we’d be best friends, instead. But then you gave me your key and…” She trailed off, shrugging.

Leaning up, Sunny pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “And we’re both idiots that can’t read body language, I know.” It was late. He had school in the morning, and then a full shift at the garage in the afternoon…but for the life of him, he just didn’t want to move. 

He’d have said Dawn read his mind, if he hadn’t seen her looking at the time, too. “Wanna crash here?” He loved this woman. She was the one, no doubt about it.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I carried you to bed, miss ‘oh  _sure_  I can handle Fireball shots’.” Dawn didn’t even bother smacking his shoulder, just let herself be gathered up. She’d been thrilled the couple of times he’d carried her places, and now he wondered if his strength was one of the things she was most attracted to.

After setting her down on her bed, Sunny turned his back so he could get changed. “You have a shirt or something I could borrow?” He asked, kicking his jeans out from underfoot. Normally, he just slept in his boxers, but that didn’t seem like good first sleepover etiquette. 

“Nope!” Dawn chirped, and he turned around again as he pulled off his shirt. Her smile widened, and he rolled his eyes. “Bummer, right?”

“I see what’s going on here.” He said accusingly, tossing his shirt down to join his jeans. She just laughed, rolling to the other side of her bed. She’d been in her pajamas since she came home from work. Sunny climbed in after her.

They tussled for a few minutes, with Dawn exploiting his ticklish spots so that he couldn’t use his greater strength to fight back. It was almost comical, how little had changed about their relationship but now, when Sunny got his arms around her, a kiss wasn’t out of the question. Eventually, they settled down.

“No chance of that shirt at all, huh?” He asked, breathless from laughter. Dawn just giggled, tangling their legs together.

“None whatsoever. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.” Sunny snorted. Warm? Overheated, would be more like it. But if Dawn liked the feel of his skin on hers, he wasn’t going to argue. Between her shorts and tank top, she was barely wearing more than he was.

Eventually, Dawn got up to turn off the light that was streaming in from the living room. By the time she returned, he’d kicked the blankets down to the end of the bed, and claimed both of the pillows as his own.

“Oh no, whatever shall I do.” She said flatly, laying her head on his chest instead. They were quiet for a few minutes, and as he was about to drop off to sleep, Dawn suddenly whispered, “You realize you’re mine now, right?”

“Mmhm.” Sunny hummed back. As if he hadn’t been hers all along.

“And I’m yours. This goes both ways, you know.” Dawn’s chest was pressed against his arm, and he could feel her heart going fast as hummingbird wings.

“Dawn.” He mumbled, not opening his eyes. “I’m crazy about you. You don’t have to worry about me waking up and changing my mind.” She relaxed against him in an instant, and he could feel her smiling.

They fell asleep eventually, and Sunny could swear it was the best sleep he’d had in years.


End file.
